Struan

Stevenson

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"Clear Voice in Europe”

IRAN PLAYING WITH FIRE

IRAN’S MIDLE EAST AGGRESSION

IS ABOUT TO COME TO A JUDDERING HALT

The Iranian regime’s days of aggressive expansionism in the Middle East are about to come to a juddering halt. This is the message from well-known Middle East lecturer and expert Struan Stevenson, President of the European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA). Speaking following his lecture at the Jean Moulin University in Lyon, Mr Stevenson said: “New sanctions ordered by the US government on several Iranian companies and individuals associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and its foreign terrorist wing the Qods Force, were a warning shot across the bows of the theocratic fascist regime. President Trump has made it quite clear that he regards Iran’s recent missile test and the attack on a Saudi frigate in the Gulf by an Iranian-backed Houthi rebel suicide boat, as direct provocations and breaches of the 2015 nuclear deal, which he is not prepared to tolerate. The president even tweeted: “Iran is playing with fire - they don't appreciate how 'kind' President Obama was to them. Not me!” To underline the message, General James Mattis, the newly appointed US Defense Secretary stated that Iran is “the biggest state sponsor of terrorism.” In Europe, the German Foreign Minister stipulated that Iran has blatantly violated several international agreements by testing ballistic missiles. He then supported the U.S. sanctions by saying that this measure is quite appropriate. The reality is that the Iranian regime has set the region on fire.

Following years of craven appeasement by the West, the turbaned tyrants in Iran are reeling from the tough new approach by the Americans. Accustomed to dealing with a spineless US foreign policy, weakly endorsed by the EU and UN, the ruthless Iranian regime has relentlessly spread its evil influence across the Middle East, backing Bashar al-Assad’s bloodstained regime in Syria, the brutal Shi’ia militias in Iraq, the Houthi rebels in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Their pledge to deploy further ballistic missiles which is a direct breach of the UN resolutions linked to the nuclear deal, is a huge mistake, which could cost Tehran dearly.

“The UN Security Council resolution urged Tehran to refrain from work on ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. However, the Iranians lamely deny ever having had a nuclear weapons programme in the first place and therefore say that none of their missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Unwilling to confront this patent falsehood and unravel the nuclear deal that he regarded as his greatest foreign policy achievement, Barack Obama allowed repeated Iranian missile tests to take place. Spin doctors in Washington even argued that the West should now exploit rich commercial trading opportunities with Iran’s ‘moderate’ president Rouhani, omitting to observe that under his three year term in office, more than 3000 people have been executed, often hanged in public in football stadiums. Breaches of human rights and women’s rights in Iran are endemic.

“Like all bullies, the Iranian mullahs believe that being aggressive pays dividends. They are about to discover that toughness is not about being a bully, it’s about having a backbone.”

Struan Stevenson added: “I support the joint letter on 7 January 2017 by 23 former top US political and military officials from both the Democrats and Republicans, who emphasized that the current crisis in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria, and the rise of ISIS (Daesh) is directly linked to the repressive regime in Iran and that the solution is to adopt a firm policy towards Iran, ending their cynical and destructive meddling in the region. “